Risks
by trufflemores
Summary: Trigger warnings: brief references to prior assault. Also angst. As promised: a very long overdue Michael reaction fic! 3x11. Klaine. COMPLETE.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Glee or any of its characters; Ryan Murphy and Co. hold that honor. I'm simply writing this for fun, not profit.

Blaine had had a bad feeling in his stomach all week about the MJ sing-off.

At first it had seemed like a perfectly logical response to the Warblers' stunning disregard for decorum: showing them that they were unwilling to be intimidated by the Warblers' stunt would force them to either back down at once or accept on a more even playing field that the New Directions were more prepared to tackle Michael's greatest hits. Blaine was certain that the New Directions could pull it off, and he knew that the Warblers enjoyed a little friendly, under-the-table competition. He'd been shaken awake and hauled out of bed half a dozen times his sophomore and junior years to help them meet a rival show choir off the records for a bit of preshow warmups.

They didn't win every time, but it wasn't about winning. Showcasing good sportsmanship and a willingness to gracefully accept defeat were all that were required to enjoy the experience. Sometimes they walked away as soon as the first number closed, aware that they had been outmatched, but other times they stayed out well into the night trading popular song lyrics back and forth, singing until neither party could carry on.

On one particularly memorable occasion Blaine had joined the Warblers in spending the night at a Crawford County Day dorm with half a dozen of their choir's best. He didn't recall the details, but he remembered being surrounded by people in varying states of consciousness and feeling warm and uninhibited. Embarrassing stories and promises to crush the competition were doubtless traded that night, but Blaine had been submerged in the atmosphere, flourishing in an environment where they could all simply _be._ He didn't have to take the lead; nothing was expected of him. It was a refreshing change after a long week of regionals' prep, and he'd fallen asleep on the floor with a pillow under his cheek and someone else's sweater draped over his back like a blanket, pleasantly unbothered by it all.

Needless to say, he'd been taken by the idea of meeting up with the Warblers again in a friendly, no-holds-barred environment and offered the sing-off as a solution without thinking. He didn't want the New Directions to think that he had changed his tune and preferred the Warblers, but he also didn't want the Warblers to feel completely abandoned, either. They were his friends – Trent and Nick and David and Cameron – and the necessity of leaving them behind to attend McKinley had been a bittersweet transition. Spending time with Kurt and his friends _was_ amazing, but Blaine missed _his _friends, and he liked the thought of being able to meet up with them in a way that would appease both groups.

Winning the sing-off – and reclaiming Michael Jackson songs as their own – would prove to the New Directions that he was still loyal (even if his enthusiasm had bled into stupidity by telling _Sebastian _of all people about their plans to cover MJ songs at Regionals), and meeting the Warblers in such a familiar set up would surely show them that he was still one of them at heart. After all: once a Warbler, always a Warbler.

Even though his announcement was met with general agreement from the New Directions, Blaine couldn't shake his uneasiness as the days passed. The Warblers had postponed the sing-off until later in the week, claiming that they needed time to put together their numbers. It was the first of several red flags for Blaine: the Warblers never needed to prepare for their sing-offs, unless word-of-mouth confirmation that it was happening qualified as preparations. They had also stonewalled him on Facebook, refusing to offer any details when he messaged Trent, Nick, and David to see if they might allow him a bit of insight into how Sebastian "captained" the Warblers.

Captaining the Warblers still seemed like an absurd notion to Blaine, and the gravity that surrounded the sing-off seemed equally, paradoxically absurd. Light-hearted competitions weren't supposed to make his heartbeat stutter, his pulse stamping out a tattoo of _wrong, wrong, wrong_ with every passing day.

At last, Thursday arrived and the New Directions assembled in the lower level of the empty parking lot, dressed almost uniformly in leather. It was comforting to see everyone wearing the same outfits. It reminded him of the Dalton logo emblazoned material that the Warblers would wear whenever they would go out to meet a rival show choir. They reserved the blazers for formal competitions, but the ties and pants were fair game, worn with sweaters and gloves and all manner of accessories. At times red and navy war paint was brought into the mixed for added effect, confirmation that regardless of the intensity of the numbers, all of it was done as a lightly competitive but largely entertaining event.

To see the New Directions huddled in a wide circle in such a grim fashion was a stark reminder to Blaine that his days as a Warbler were over and this was his camp now. Even though the echo of togetherness resonated, it was still a sobering sight.

"Look who finally decided to show up," Puck greeted as Blaine sauntered down the length of the lot towards the circle.

Blaine ignored him and joined the circle, stepping into place between Brittany and Mike. He met Kurt's gaze, utterly unreadable from their distance, before looking around to see who else had showed up. Quinn, Artie, Rory, Finn, Rachel, Tina, Mercedes –

"Where's Santana?"

"Right here, Wonder Twin," Santana said, flipping his hood up and appearing at Brittany's side a moment later. She was still wearing her Cheerios' skirt, but she'd thrown on a leather jacket, just like Brittany. Idly Blaine wondered if the Warblers would be off put once they saw the dedication that the New Directions had taken to coordinate their outfits. Even Kurt had complied with Santana's simple instruction: _wear leather, and lots of it._

To Blaine's surprise, it was Kurt that spoke next, in that soft, misleadingly passive tone of his that meant either a) his time was being wasted or b) he wanted to keep his emotions hidden. "Why aren't they here yet?"

"Good question," Puck said, directing his gaze and the full weight of the question's answer at Blaine as he waited for a response. "Anderson?"

Unsure how Puck expected him to pull up an answer, Blaine was about to respond when Santana linked arms with him, the warm softness of her skin against his arresting in the cool night air. "Relax, Puckerman. We'll scout it out. Follow us when you're ready." Without waiting for a response, she hauled him away from the group – away from Kurt, he reflected morosely – and deeper into the parking garage.

Pushing the hood back with his free hand, he stumbled and hurried to keep up with the brisk pace that she set. "Where are we going?"

"To find your friends."

"They're not –" The perfunctory denial caught in his throat. _They are._

Santana didn't say anything else, leading him up another level and coming to a halt when they heard voices in the distance. "Stay here," she ordered, arranging him against the side of a thick support beam before rounding the corner and doing the same, flicking her hood up as she did so.

Blaine reached up to flick his own hood up after a moment's thought – it couldn't hurt to show camaraderie, after all – as the click of the Warbler's heels became louder in the darkness. They waited until the conversation had died down completely and there was only the steady clicking of footsteps to contend with, their breaths almost loud in the silence. Blaine had to admit that the Warbler's intimidation tactics were impressive; his heart rate was already escalating, although whether it was the Warblers or the way that the light caught the parking poles, disguising shadows and any persons lurking with them expertly, he couldn't say. He didn't have any time to overanalyze the situation – _it's been two years _– before Santana pushed off the pole with only a whispery touch to his arm, signaling him to follow.

Drawing in a breath to steel himself, he did so, coming to a halt just in front of the Warblers.

The hairs on the back of Blaine's neck prickled.

They were in _full uniform_.

From the carefully controlled hair to the rigid set of their shoulders, there was no mistaking the solemnity of their appearance. They were a single unit, operating solely under the command of Sebastian, who stood slightly apart from them with his arms folded across his chest. Blaine tried not to let his trepidation chase him away (_they're your friends, they're your friends, they're your friends_) even as the shadows of three older, more sinister men loomed at their shoulders. Their faces were utterly implacable, offering no explanation.

Blaine barely heard Sebastian's words, his gaze fixed on the Warblers, dumbfounded. _What's going on?_

He remained mostly silent with an effort, losing some of his restraint when Sebastian finally taunted, "What, all of us against … the two of you? You really think you're that bad?" There was a beat where he paused to the barb sting before continuing, "Is that what they teach you at that little public school of yours?"

Deciding to play it up, Blaine stared right at him and replied, "It's time to see _who's_ bad."

On cue – and whether it was planned beforehand or if Blaine's voice still had that level of command, that hair-trigger response, he didn't know – the Warblers dropped the first notes of MJ's _Bad, _setting the stage as the New Directions assembled at Blaine's and Santana's backs.

Blaine didn't have time to question it, falling into sync as though his body alone had been present at a meeting on what they were supposed to do. That was simply who the New Directions were – spontaneous and yet somehow amazingly coordinated where the Warblers took hours to keep their lines straight. Even so, Finn still couldn't dance and there was a sort of mish-mash coherency to it all that kept Blaine reeling as they sang and danced and gave and took ground in the garage, careful not to miss a beat in the song as Santana's voice soared and Artie's and Blaine's counterbalanced it.

So caught up in the music was he that he almost missed the uneasy glances that the Warblers shared, lacking their usual friendly interplay as they sang and danced around the New Directions. Blaine met them head-on, daring anyone to break character. He wanted to dissolve it all into a more casual setting already, but they never broke and neither did he, and the song was building so well. He couldn't cut it off, not yet, not now, not –

There was a flash of brown in the midst of all the red and blue, and he heard the thin crinkle of a paper bag being opened as some_thing _was pulled out of it, his senses zeroing in on the object almost before his mind could catch up with them. _What are you doing, what's going on?_

All he caught was a flash of Kurt's smile as Sebastian leveled the Big Quench cup at him, dangling it between his fingers in a mocking toast as Santana belted out, "_Just to tell you once again – who's bad?_"

He _lunged _forward, intent on pushing Sebastian and Kurt apart and only meeting them halfway as the ice smashed into his face, painting him in red. For half a second he couldn't respond, his senses kicking into overdrive as he registered first _cold, ice _and then_ burnburnburnBURN._

The pain surged up to meet him, his shoulder hitting the ground hard. He didn't hear any of Kurt's querulous comforts or Rachel's aghast exclamations as the Warblers beat a quiet but hasty retreat. Puck was already on them with barked demands – _What the hell? Get back here, you Goddamn prep school bastards _– as Rory and Mike held him back.

"What's going on?" Artie asked, his voice instantly recognizable despite the turmoil. "The hell was in that slushy?"

"I don't know, I – oh God he's bleeding, oh God," Kurt chanted, which did absolutely nothing for Blaine's nerves but barely registered past the veil of red that seemed to be covering his vision. He hunched inward and scraped at his eyes with blunted nails, willing to gouge them out if it meant that the pain would stop. "Hon- honey stop, _stop it,_" Kurt ordered, noticing and seizing his wrists in an iron grip. "Enough, it's okay, you'll make it worse, you're okay, just don't touch it."

_Don't touch it._

Blaine whined as he lurched out of Kurt's grip and slipped to one side, his back and shoulders throbbing but his eyes his eyes oh God his eyes burning and searing and aching. He couldn't control himself, scrubbing at them until the pain was a constant ring in his ears and an agonizing shock to his senses, a thousand nerves afire at the forefront of his head as he screamed into his palms.

He hunched and grunted into his hands, scrabbling weakly at his own coat in a feeble attempt to free it. If he could just clear his eyes, oh God, his eyes, then he would be all right. He had to get the burning ice away, had to, and with that in mind he started to unzip his coat with shaking fingers and had almost gotten it down the length of his chest when Kurt's hand interrupted and stilled it.

"Dude, this is really serious," Finn was saying in a low tone overhead, his voice hard to hear amid the ringing.

"Yes, Finn, I'm aware," Kurt snapped back, his clear as day as he zipped Blaine's jacket back up without a thought. "Come on, sweetie, up you go, please don't rub them, it's okay."

Blaine didn't know how Kurt could think it was okay. Before he could respond, however, he was being hauled upright by two pairs of hands, one on either side. He curled up between their owners, knees still on the floor as he scraped and scraped and scraped at his face, desperate to stop the pain.

If someone had taken a knife to his face, then they wouldn't have stopped him from clutching his eyes, oh no, but it was a slushy and slushies hurt but they weren't supposed to _hurt _like this, and what the hell waseven_ in_ that slushy it felt likes _knives_ and God if it went on another minute he'd gouge his own eyes out himself.

"It hurts," he whimpered, driven to desperation as he buried his raw, slush-sticky face against Kurt's shoulder and rubbed. It did nothing to alleviate the pain.

He felt desperation clawing at the back of his throat as he sagged against Kurt, clinging to the back of his leather jacket as Kurt held him up, shaking noticeably in Blaine's hold. It didn't matter that a residual part of him wanted to comfort; Blaine _needed _to get the pain away, and he couldn't focus on anything else until that happened. He was on the verge of another scream when Mercedes finally piped in with a short offer of "We can take my car."

That was all it took, thankfully, and after a staggering series of steps and a continuous stream of clipped, broken moans, Blaine was successfully guided into the backseat of a night-cooled Navigator beside Kurt as Mercedes took the wheel.

"He gonna be okay?" Finn asked, his voice once again distant to Blaine's ears as he hunched and breathed out heavily through his mouth, his breath dissolving into pants as Kurt draped an arm around his back and rubbed idly at his hip.

"What do you think, Finn?" Mercedes replied, directing her attention back at Kurt as she added, "How are you holding up, honey?"

"Just drive, please," Kurt begged, and Mercedes made a sympathetic noise before refocusing her attention on the road. Finn was silent in the passenger's seat as Kurt tried to coax Blaine's hands away from his face.

Blaine didn't even realize that he was whining in addition to rocking lightly as he kept them plastered over his eyes, the coldness of his palms almost soothing against the sharp burning behind his eyelids. Something felt wrong – inexplicably, terrifyingly so – as he rocked and waited for the pain to settle or his body to adjust to it.

The nearest hospital was nearly twenty minutes away, and Blaine listed onto his side the longer they drove, unattached and uncaring. It was late and the likelihood of a crash seemed thin and distant from the immediacy of his current plight. He swayed a little until Kurt finally coaxed him onto his lap, the back of his head resting on Kurt's thigh as he moaned, every breath tinged with discomfort.

"It's okay," Kurt said softly, dabbing at his cheek with a handkerchief, wiping away some of the slushy. "It's okay, I'm here. You're okay."

The soothing mantra kept Blaine calm as they drove, his eyes squinted shut in pain as Kurt's free hand carded through his curls while his right hand dabbed at the liquid.

Tilting his head so that his cheek rested against the curve of Kurt's palm, he whimpered, unable to keep entirely silent as Mercedes and Finn talked in low voices in the front seat.

"It's okay," Kurt said, and his own voice ached, the handkerchief disappearing as he clung to Blaine's hand instead, offering him an anchor to cling to. "It's okay, honey."

Blaine didn't know how they got to the hospital – an endless series of traffic lights and sparsely populated roads, eerily and dimly lit behind his closed eyes – but between one moment and the next he was being shepherded out of the backseat and onto the cold concrete, shivering in the open air. The slushy had seeped into his jacket and the cold was like a slap in the face, reawakening the sharpness of the ebbing pain in his face.

"Stop," he whined, wanting to curl up on the concrete and hold his eyes until they stopped hurting, until he could cease all external functionality and simply _be, _escape the pain through sheer avoidance if nothing else. Finn and Kurt weren't having it, though, and after much coaxing from Kurt – and not a small amount of manhandling on Finn's part – they made it through the doors with Blaine slung over Finn's shoulder.

"Easy," Kurt worried, guiding them down the hallway and into the emergency room and scurrying off while Finn lumbered over to the sitting area and deposited his whining cargo on a chair. Blaine didn't care how undignified he looked, or how awful his hair had to be, or how childish it was to complain in the middle of a room full of injured and unwell patients equally entitled to their misery. He simply turned his head into Finn's shoulder and held on, willing each heaving breath to keep coming, struggling to maintain any semblance of control.

"Okay," Finn said uneasily, settling into the seat beside him as Blaine curled up against him, hands pressed to his eyes. "It's okay."

Mercedes showed up just as Kurt returned, rubbing Blaine's back as he hunched over and kept his hands against his eyes. Time seemed of little consequence as Blaine willed the sharpness underneath his eyelids to disappear. When Kurt hauled him up to get a wrist band and consult a nurse, he groaned, barely able to shuffle his feet forward with his eyes stinging so badly.

He tried blinking and squinting and scrubbing at the closed lids until his entire face felt raw and slush-burned, but nothing made any difference. Surrendering himself to his own misery, he stayed hunched over his knees while Kurt rubbed his back, willing himself to stop hurting.

"_Sir, I need you to calm down, we're here to help."_

"_This way, please, watch your step."_

"_It's okay, ma'am, we'll handle it from here."_

"_My son, please, tell me –"_

_There were so many people crammed into the tiny, painfully bright room. _

_Three policemen were speaking with a group of nurses in the main reception area as groaning men and women were shuffled onto gurneys and behind closed doors around them. The car accident had taken place nearly twenty minutes prior, according to one policeman's account, and the ER staff were still dealing with the aftermath of a violent bar fight when the injured began arriving. There were enough staff to keep things moving, but there were no extra hands to be spared for less-than-critical injuries._

_On that terrible Friday evening Blaine was just another number waiting to be carded in the system, a red-stained handkerchief clamped to his face to stop the bleeding. He wasn't sure which hurt more, the cut underneath his eye or the broken tilt to his nose, but he moaned brokenly into his hands as the chaos milled around him. It became evident after the first half hour that it would be a while until he was seen; by the end of the first hour, he had already emptied the remaining contents of his stomach into a nearby trashcan and lost track of his handkerchief. He sat hunched over his belly listening to a seven-year-old boy whimper over a broken wrist while his mother cradled her son and helped hold the limb steady for nearly eighteen minutes before they were seen._

_It was ninety-six minutes before Blaine was taken back, his entire face so pale that he didn't recognize himself in the mirror that they passed, nor did he have the strength to sit upright when he sat in a chair to be cuffed and carded in the system. His blood pressure was low and his temperature teetering. The nurse was nice, he recalled vaguely, ushering him into a private area and draping a warm blanket over his back and shoulders. _

_But the moaning was constant there, his shoulders twitching every time someone screamed. He tried to focus on himself and couldn't, only aware of the tapering wheeze of his breath, the jarring headache pounding behind his skull. His legs ached and his chest hurt as though he'd been hit by a sledgehammer. When a nurse finally came in he couldn't move, flinching when she shone a light in his eyes and sluggishly answering her queries about what hurt, what had happened._

These three guys, _he said, stumbling over his own words, _they – _he paused to lick his lips and tasted blood, gagging on it hard enough that she put a bowl between his cold hands and waited, letting him recover. _My date, he's – I don't know where he is, he – they hurt him, please, I don't know where he went, he ran away –

_He could see the shock in her eyes, the pity, the _I'm so sorry this happened to you, but why would you _do _that?

_Because I love who I love and that's never going to change, he thought fiercely _–

Resurfacing to a doctor's calm, steadying voice saying, "Blaine? I need you to focus on me."

The shift from the waiting room to the enclosed triage area was jarring; Blaine sucked in a breath and tried to take stock of his surroundings, but his world was dark and his eyes _ached._ He couldn't see anything, couldn't open his eyes properly, couldn't stop the pain from surging up and doubling him over.

The doctor was still speaking, but Blaine couldn't focus on him, his breath heaving in and out of his chest until he felt Kurt's hand on his back, steadying. Kurt. Kurt. Oh God, Kurt.

"What – what happened, are you okay?" he babbled. "Please tell me you're okay, please –"

"Honey, honey, stop," Kurt chanted, stepping around him until he could grab Blaine's wrists and hold them, grounding him. "It's okay. I'm fine, let them help, please, they're here to help."

Blaine didn't know what help entailed, but he tasted bile and struggled to sit up a little more, not wanting any of it. "Take me home," he said, and then louder when no one seemed to hear him, "Take me home, take me home, take me home."

Kurt made a soft noise and guided him close for a hug, letting his slush-stick face rest against Kurt's cool, leather-clad chest. "It's okay, honey. I'm here. Stay with me, okay?"

He tried to focus on Kurt, tried to keep his breathing steady and not panicky, but even so it was a challenge. Every instinct that he possessed screamed for him to get away, chanted danger-danger-danger, and even though the circumstances were different and he wasn't wearing a suit but a leather MJ-inspired outfit, he could feel the tension racketing up his spine until it was nearly unbearable.

As people moved around him he clung to Kurt and refused to let go, whining when Kurt finally pried him off so that the doctor could address him directly. The doctor was speaking and he could hear her words but nothing made sense, not the "irrigation" or "discomfort" or "relief." It was a foreign body to him, a language barrier that didn't exist erecting itself between them, making it impossible for him to respond except in a simple series of "please, please, make it stop hurting."

A nurse swiped the back of his hand with an alcoholic wipe and he let out a hysterical noise, halfway out of his seat in reflexive alarm because no, no, no, _no._

"It's okay," Kurt said, steadying him with a hand on his elbow and back. "You're okay." He squeezed onto the bed beside Blaine and held him as the nurse gently explained the mechanics of an IV, Kurt's gaze evidently averted as he rested his cheek against the back of Blaine's damp head and whispered, "It's okay, it's okay."

He flinched when they stuck him, never able to step away from that particular pain entirely, but he didn't move or make a sound after, holding onto Kurt's shirt tightly with his free hand. It didn't take long before his hand was properly taped and the doctor was relaying the next steps, drowsiness creeping over Blaine until his limbs went limp against Kurt's, almost ragdoll in his arms.

"S'goin' on?" he asked, his tongue thick and struggling over the words.

"Shh," Kurt hushed, brushing a hand through the hairs at the back of his neck and cradling him closer. "It's okay."

Blaine didn't know who the mantra was meant to help, then; he just sank into Kurt's arms, aware that his eyes hurt but lacking the same need to resist and escape as before. The adrenaline was gone, and with it, every ounce of fight had gone with it. He didn't even flinch when a nurse finally cupped his chin in a hand to examine his eyes, letting out a hiss when she carefully tugged his left and then right eyelids up.

She kept talking to them, maintaining a steady stream of conversation as she dabbed at his face with a warm, clean cloth, removing the excess slush, but Blaine didn't notice, leaning against Kurt and shutting his eyes when he could.

Kurt rubbed his back and held him, keeping him afloat as waves of sleepiness washed over him. When at last a doctor had him lie down he didn't fight it, only reaching out weakly in Kurt's direction and clasping his hand when Kurt reached back.

They got him comfortable, a towel around his neck and a pillow underneath his head. Even from behind closed lids the room was bright, but his eyes ached in a distant way, as if it were all happening to someone else. He stared into red when a nurse pried his eyelids open once more, hissing when the water touched the sensitive surface.

Later they would tell him that the entire procedure only took ten minutes, but he was convinced that it took hours, lurching and writhing in their grasp and twisting his head away as much as he could. Kurt was gone, and even though Blaine couldn't blame him, it still made his stomach drop when he realized that he'd left. Cooperation the furthest thing from his mind, he struggled and gasped at every touch, straining away from them until at last a cloth was draped over his eyes, shutting out the world.

He awoke in a void, only aware of Kurt's thumb whispering over the backs of his knuckles as he rubbed it. There was a nurse speaking in low tones in the corner and Blaine tensed reflexively, ready to put up a more considerable fight if he needed to. The pain, he noticed distantly, was different, now; the burn was gone, replaced instead by a steady, indefinable sharpness in his right eye that made every twitch sear.

He moaned, tilting his head towards Kurt as Kurt reached up to rub the back of his head soothingly. "I'm here," he promised, the words like a balm to the soreness. "I'm right here, sweetie."

Blaine didn't know how long he spent like that, drifting, until at last he was able to open his left eye to a slit, observing the fuzzy world beyond. He felt calmer than he had in hours, less like a toy that had been wound up too many times and more like a functional human being. His leather jacket was gone and the sharp twinge in his right side had all but vanished, the lack of cold and secondary pain making it easier to take stock of himself and his environment.

"I wanna go home," he mumbled, squeezing Kurt's hand feebly. "Please, take me home."

That request, at least, was honored: a different doctor returned after a time and went over the aftercare as well as a scheduled follow-up visit with his ophthalmologist. His right eye still hurt, but it wasn't as sharp as before – a byproduct of painkillers. There was a bandage and an eye patch already over the area, protecting it. When the doctor asked him if he had any questions about it, he shook his head. He had too many questions for a single sitting, and he didn't want to spend another minute in the ER when he could be _home._

He was almost asleep again by the time a nurse had removed the IV and directed them to the discharge area. Kurt helped him sign out, holding him up with an arm around his waist and indicating where he needed to sign as Blaine fumbled through the motions of presenting IDs and finishing paperwork. Finn and Mercedes were still waiting for them in the main area, and Blaine couldn't bring himself to respond to either of them as they carefully asked how he was feeling, leaning his head against Kurt's shoulder as he limped along beside him.

He didn't remember sliding into the backseat of Mercedes' car again, nor did he recall the drive back to his house, but he groaned when Finn slid his arms underneath him, lifting him carefully. The stairs were navigated with surprising dexterity, Kurt cautioning them the entire way up to _be careful, be careful, please be careful._

When Blaine felt soft sheets against his back he groaned in relief, turning his face against the pillow while Kurt helped him out of his boots and pants – Finn excused himself with a swift, "Feel better, dude" – and into a more comfortable set of pajamas, gingerly working his shirt over his head and replacing it with a soft button-up to avoid aggravating the eye patch any more.

Blaine latched onto his sleeve when Kurt pulled back, whispering, "Stay." Repercussions didn't matter; even Kurt's hesitation seemed irrelevant as he pleaded, "Stay."

Kurt leaned down to kiss his forehead, whispered, "Let me talk to Finn," and left him, whining softly in the darkness as he waited.

He didn't wait long, however, before Kurt was there, already in a pair of Blaine's pajamas – thank God for boyfriend privileges; he didn't have the energy to tell him that it was fine, that his stuff was Kurt's as far as he was concerned – and climbing onto the bed beside him. Blaine scooted tiredly closer so he could rest his cheek on Kurt's chest, unconcerned if it made his face ache.

Reaching up to rub the back of his neck, Kurt whispered, "My brave, brave boyfriend. I'm so sorry."

Blaine shook his head fractionally, barely upsetting Kurt's hand as he rasped, "Not your fault. S'bastian's."

He could question the Warblers' motives later – and, indeed, he would – and he could worry over what would have happened if he _hadn't _seen the slushy, but none of that mattered just then. All that mattered was that Kurt was safe and Blaine was alive, and the healing process – however slow – would happen.

"I love you," he murmured. "S'much."

"Shh," Kurt chided, stroking his hair until sleep was barely avoidable, until he almost didn't hear the words when Kurt whispered back, "I love you, too."

Enduring anything, Blaine decided moments before he fell asleep in Kurt's arms, was worth it for Kurt.


End file.
